it’s not easy being mammal - psychology today · 2014. 2. 6. · a mamma mammal can only have a...

imammalthebook.com Loretta Graziano Breuning

It’s not easy being mammal


The mammal brain freed us to build survival skills from life experience instead of being born hard-wired with the habits of our ancestors.


But it’s not easy for mammals to get along with each other, as each brain promotes its own survival.


Before mammals, creatures had thousandsof babies and few lived to puberty.

In the beginning, a species survived by having huge numbers of offspring because most died before puberty. Insects, fish and reptiles invest in quantity, not in parental care. Their young are born hard-wired with survival skills.


Reptiles leave their offspring at birth after pausing to eat any hatchlings that are under par.

Baby reptiles start running as they hatch out of the shell, and if they’re not fast enough their parents weed them out and recycle the energy.


Fish don’t even wait for their eggs to hatch. They swim off as soon as their eggs are fertilized.

Trees send their seed into the wind without seeing it grow into might oaks.


Mammals developed the strategyof birthing few offspring andinvesting in each individual.

Post-partum investment: lactation, guardingPre-natal investment: long gestation necessary to develop big brain and warm-blooded metabolism


Mammals form attachments, and guard their offspring constantly from predators.

A baby mammal can’t understand the danger of wandering off. It survives because it’s wired to attach.A mother loses everything if her vigilance falters, but it doesn’t because she’s motivated by the neurochemistry of attachment.


It’s not easy having your eggs in so few baskets.

A mamma mammal can only have a small number of offspring because each one requires so much attention. A lost child represents a huge percentage of a motherʼs lifetime reproductive capacity compared to a reptile or fish or even bird.


When mammals live in groups,fewer young are lost to predators.

Natural selection produced a brain good at living in a herd.


It’s not easy living in groups.

When you see something you want, a bigger group mate wants it too.

The mammal brain’s capacity for empathy and altruism gets a lot of attention these days. It helps diminish the conflict and tension inherent in group life. But it’s not the whole story. Mammals also compete. This is obvious, but nice people don’t like to acknowledge it.


A solitary reptile can lunge at food without

worrying what others will think.


If a mammaldid that, it might getinjured by a bigger group mate.

You can survive the loss of one mealbetter than you can survive a nasty conflict.

When a mammal acts on its impulse to meet its needs, it risks getting injured by stronger members of the herd or pack or troop. The mammal brain promotes survival by avoiding conflict.


Natural selection produced a brain skilled at deciding when to seize something that meets its

needs, and when to hold back to avoid injury.

“Needs” means food, mates, and security (status, territory, and/or alliances that protect from predators and help secure future food and mates.“a good table”


The mammal brain sizes up othersbased on past experience with them.

A mammal survives by comparing itselfto others and anticipating reactions.


All mammals have the same basic parts under their cortex.


Mammals inherited reptile brains and added on.


Mammals evolved brain structures thatmanage social interactions with neurochemicals.

Reptiles also use brain chemicals to manage behavior. They have precursors of these brain structures that support a narrower range of behaviors.


The mammal brain uses neurochemicals to interpret survival information.“this input is good/bad for me”

“this input is good/bad for me”


It releases “happy” neurochemicals(dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin)when it sees something that promotes reproductive

success.

A good feeling is released when you see an opportunity to advance your reproductive success (food, mates, safety, social dominance). That neurochemical surge connect neurons, which wires a mammal to go toward things that stimulate more of the good feelings. Different neurochemicals reward different survival behaviors.


“Unhappy” neurochemicals (cortisol) flow when the brain sees a

threat to reproductive success.

Cortisol is released when you see a threat to your food, safety, mating opportunity, social dominance, and to your children.Bad feelings wire you to avoid those specific threats in the future to avoid more of the bad feelings.This promotes survival.


Social bonds promote reproductive success, and the brain rewards them with “happy chemicals.”

Natural selection produced a brain that rewards you with a good feeling when you do things that promote survival, such as sticking with the herd. It punishes you with a bad feeling when you do things that threaten survival, such as separating from the herd.


The chemical “oxytocin” rewards a mammal for bonds of trust, like

social alliances and maternal-child bonding


Oxytocin is released at birth and on touch. It produces a good feeling when a mammal trusts another.

Of course, trusting the wrong individual hurts survival prospects, so betrayed trust triggers cortisol.


The mammal brain learns when to trust from experience because neurochemicals stimulate

connections between neurons. Conscious analysis is not necessary.

Positive and negative experiences build pathways to your happy and unhappy chemicals. You link them to the perception of the individuals present at the moment.


The chemical “dopamine” produces a good feeling when a mammal finds a way to meet its needs.

Dopamine releases the reserve tank of energy when you’re close to a reward, whether trekking toward water in the desert or seeing the finish line in a marathon. Dopamine causes a good feeling in advance of the reward when you see something that met your needs in the past. Dopamine causes expectations.


The chemical “sertonin” rewards a mammal when it dominates.

This is not what you want to hear. Social dominance feels good because it stimulates serotonin, and the good feeling motivates an organism to seek more of it. The mammal brain is focused on survival. When empathy and altruism promote survival, that circuits lights up. When social dominance promotes survival, that circuit lights up.


Social dominance promotesreproductive success and

the mammal brain rewards it with serotonin.

Serotonin feels good. Mammals seek status because the brain rewards it with that good feeling. Past serotonin surges wire you to expect more good feelings in similar situations. The mammal brain chooses behaviors from the different neural circuits it created in different past experiences.


Females seek dominance as well as males, and more surviving offspring result.

Social dominance leads females to more food, more safety, more and better mating opportunities. For example, higher-ranking female monkeys control who gets to touch their baby, and they get more help from high-status males. The babies of lower-ranking females are kidnapped and handled roughly by high status females (and males).


Your mammal brain cares about status as if your life depended on it becausefrom your DNA’s perspective, it does.

There are infinite ways to define status, but a mammal cares about them with the energy that drives survival. (It’s not easy being a mammal.)


Status threats are survival threats to the mammal brain, and trigger stress chemicals.

Cortisol is different from adrenaline. C triggers alarm, A triggers alert, but not negativity. We alert to both positives and negatives, so behavior is always shaped by a cocktail of neurochemicals, which are in turn shaped by your network of existing neural circuits.


A cortex can restrain the urge to grab when a bigger group mate is watching.

The cortex can stop an impulse.


A mammal’s cortex uses stored experience to restrain neurochemical impulses.

A cortex learns from experience by building new circuits. But the cortex can’t run without the limbic system. The cortex can inhibit an impulse, and give the limbic system time to come up with an alternative. But cortex without a limbic system sees the world as an infinity of detail and cannot weigh preferences and act.


Mammals avoid conflict when that promotes survival, and they engage in conflict

when that promotes survival.

When to do each? Layers of neural connections start building from your earliest experiences of pleasure and pain.


Size matterswhen it comes to the cortex.


A bigger cortex can store more experience with individual group mates.

and update that experience as relative status rankings change.This is what primates do with their extra neurons.


A big cortex makes subtle judgements about when to seek dominance and when to submit to avoid harm.

Extra neurons support complex strategies like reciprocal altruism and strategic alliances.That’s why primates social hierarchies are dynamic, while they’re more fixed among mammals with a smaller cortex.


A mammal may appear to“inherit” status from its mother.


But research shows that primates learn social dominance skills by mirroring elders.

Mirror neurons fire when a primate observes a goal-directed behavior in others.


A young mammal goes out and promotes its own genes with the brain it

has built from its own experience.


Instead of being hard-wired to survive the way our ancestors survived, we mammals are born to build neural pathways from early experience.


It’s not easy beinga social animal.


I, MammalWhy Your Brain LinksStatus and Happinessby Loretta Graziano Breuning

$11.99 on Amazon.com

www.imammalthebook.com

CONTACT: [email protected]

I’d love to hear from you.

http://www.imammalthebook.com

http://www.imammalthebook.com

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Dopamine

Dopamine makes you jump for joywhen you reach a goal or get a toy.In nature, it helps find food when you need it.“Eureka, I got it!” A memory gets created.Dopamine causes expectations.Correct predictions bring good sensations.Dopamine feels great so you try to get more.It rewarded our ancestors trudging through gore.Cocaine triggers dopamine. Caution to all:Joy without goal-seeking leads to a fall.Dopamine !ows when you feel like “I’ve done it.”When others do it for you, your dopamine will shun it.

available at www.MeetYourHappyChemicals.com


Endorphin

Endorphin helps you mask the painOf injuries that you sustain.Your ancestors escaped from predator attack‘Cause endorphin felt good while they ran back.Endorphin feels great when it eases your pains.But only real pain makes it !ow in your veins.Exercise triggers it, experts alert you.But "rst you must do it ‘til body parts hurt you.Endorphin receptors let opium in.So you feel like you’re safe without li#ing a shin.Laughing and crying can trigger it too.But just for a moment– then the job’s through.



Oxytocin

Oxytocin makes you trust your mates.We love the bonds that it creates.Oxytocin flows when you stick with the herd.“Not me!” you may say, “I’m no bovine or bird.”But without social bonds, your brain feels alarm.$is protected our ancestors from all kinds of harm.Though the herd will annoy you, the pack hurt you so.When you run with a pack, oxytocin will !ow.“My pack is great and the other is nuts.”$is thinking prevailed since the "rst mammal struts.You’re above all this foolishness, obviously.But it feels good when I trust you and you trust me.



Serotonin swells your chest with prideWhen you get respect and needn’t hide.Your brain feels good when you boost yourself higher.But when others do this, it provokes your ire.“I don’t care about status. It’s other who do.”But you spurt serotonin when the limelight’s on you.You are quite modest and don’t like to boast.But no serotonin !ows when you coast.Status doesn’t depend on money.You can be clever or helpful or funny.But when others one-up you, your mind agitates.‘Cause serotonin droops ‘til you lift your own weights.

Serotonin


it’s not easy being mammal - psychology today · 2014. 2. 6. · a mamma mammal can only have a...

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